Posted
by
timothyon Thursday May 29, 2014 @04:48PM
from the says-the-gartner-analyst dept.

Lucas123 (935744) writes "Currently, the hottest trend from TV manufacturers is to offer curved panels, but analysts say it's nothing more than a ploy to pander to consumers who want the latest, coolest-looking tech in their home. In the end, the TVs don't offer better picture quality. In fact, they offer a degraded view to anyone sitting off center. Samsung and LG claim that the curve provides a cinema-like experience by offering a more balanced and uniform view so that the edges of the set don't appear further away than the middle. Paul Gray, director of European TV Research for DisplaySearch, said those claims are nothing by pseudo-science. "Curved screens are a gimmick, much along the same lines as 3D TVs are," said Paul O'Donovan, Gartner's principal analyst for consumer electronics research."

The odd bit is at the end of TFS where they say that curved TVs are a gimmick like 3D TVs. There is a big difference, 3D TVs actually give an appearance of 3D when viewing 3D content, (all the brain-and-eye confusing tricks and deception notwithstanding). Every reasonably normal sighted person can see the 3D effect, most just don't think its worth the price (or the headaches).

Curved TVs on the other hand provide a picture that is indistinguishable from normal flat screens, EVEN when you see them side by side in the store.

I don't own a curved TV, nor am I interested in defending the concept, but one thing I do notice with flat TVs is that even matte displays are prone to reflecting at least some fixed outside light source to the viewer. I can't help but wonder if a curved screen would reduce this.

I have a window that reflects off of a matte display and is annoyingly visible on the screen during the day. The only way to get rid of it is to either put a heavy blanket over it or to turn the tv in a very uncomfortable angle.

If you have a glossy flat TV, then there will be one particular angle where light hitting will reflect right at you and annoy the crap out of you. For a curved TV, there the light will reflect off different parts of the screen for a wider range of angles, thus annoying you even more.

Only if use use a Monster cable between your cable box and your TV. For those watching satellite, you'll only get the benefit on clear days, because as everyone knows, clouds obscure the sky and so degrade the signal. Getting a specially woven satellite dish can help - talk to your local representative for your options.

It's a reasonably popular gimmick. The local theater is showing four films in 3D-- X-Men, Spiderman 2, Godzilla and Maleficent, as well as seven 2D only titles . A few months down the road, if you want to replicate the experience of seeing any of those four films at home, a 3D TV would be useful.

Actually, gaming on a 3D TV is quite fun. Batman Arkham City was amazing in 3D. All the gliding and swooping is incredibly fun with the better depth perspective. It's a help with racing games, where it aids judgement of braking distance to the corner.

So, yes, 3D TV is mildly gimmicky, but it can also quite useful as well. Don't discount it entirely.

I wouldn't say that. Like 3D, nobody is really going to get any value for their money out of a curved TV. Like 3D, it's a desperate grasping for some way to get people to buy a new TV before the old one dies.

Color TV actually upgraded the viewing experience significantly for a lot of people.

Since 3d has come and gone as a fad multiple times, gimmick is a pretty good word for it.

UHDTV is coming, and these current 4k TVs will not be compatible. For a start, the resolution will be UHDTV1 2160p (just under 4k) and UHDTV2 4320p (that's almost 8k!), rec.2020, 100fps and 120fps, plus much more. Plus DRM issues.

Testing in the UK for UHDTV1 is 2016, 2020 for UHDTV2 which the Olympic Games in Japan will be shot at.

The whole reason why they went with 4k instead of 2160p for the name is because 4k is shorter, easier to say and looks like it is bigger than 2160p.

It's also a more accurate name in that horizontal resolution doesn't vary with a movie's aspect ratio. A "1080p" movie could be 1920x1080 (16:9) or ~1920x800 (21:9) or any other vertical resolution. The 1920 ("2k") is the real constant. I think the usage of lines was a holdover from the days of analog TV when vertical resolution was discrete but horizontal was continuous.

Have you seen a 4K screen displaying legit 4K content? They're amazing. I missed this past CES, but I saw a bunch of them at the 2013 show. Sharp was showing off an 8K screen and it was absolutely jaw dropping.

What's going to be nice, is when we can eye-track and overlay this on the source to shift focus (like what we do when we use our eyes normally). Probably not too hard to bolt onto games, but suspect it'll be a while until devices like the Lytro are providing video.

I've spent some time watching a Samsung curved TV, and it certainly is distinguishable from a flat screen. The picture does seem to have a bit more depth. Less accurate, but interesting and enjoyable. I'd liken it to a hifi system. You can have one that is extremely realistic, or you can have one that has an "exciting" sound, and there is a place for both.

Maybe it's like 4k. Some people can see it, some apparently can't. I'm sorry you couldn't.

Meanwhile, I went to an EBU standards meeting on UHDTV. Curved screens came up, some want it to be the norm, asking if none straight lines should be used instead of straight ones on transmission so lines appear straight on curved screens.

The answer, of course is that the camera (either film or digital) uses a flat sensor. Taking a picture with a flat sensor, and then displaying it on a curved screen, is just distorting the image. So the consumer thinks they're cool - but in reality they are watching an inferior picture.

The picture is inferior, but that doesn't mean that the effect isn't enjoyable. In any case you got it wrong. The reason cinema screens are flat is so that everyone in the cinema can see them reasonably well. Curved screens only really work for one or two viewers.

Samsung and LG want curved TVs to become all the rage because the only way to currently make them are using OLEDs and they own many of the patents for OLED screens. With that said, the Samsung OLED television got a glowing review from Consumer Reports - basically the only downside to the TV was the cost which is sure to come down in the future.

Isn't the *near* edge of the screen distorted for off-center viewers, and the far edge of the screen closer to perfect?

Again, I think it's largely a gimmick, and wouldn't use it as a sole or major purchasing decision. For two otherwise equivalent (including price or at least a VERY small discrepancy) TVs, I might choose the curved one. Then again, I would be sitting in the sweet spot.

If curved surfaces were optimal for viewing content, we would have transitioned to curved paintings and photos centuries or decades ago. But, it turns out, we're replicating a 3D space on a 2D surface. Whether than 2D is flat or curved makes little practical difference to the observer, but makes the manufacture and mounting of said piece a great deal less efficient,

Proportionally less curve in a movie screen as compared to the size of the room and the viewing angles. And yes, the screen is distorted for viewers seated towards the sides - but again. due to the lower proportional curvature, more of the screen remains clear (and the "sweet spot" in the center is wider).

First, I sit about 9 feet from the TV, not 16.5, so the curvature will be wrong anyway. Second, the price difference is already more than I am willing to pay for the whole TV.

As TFA points out, only one person in the room would get an optimal view anyway.

Finally, if the whole problem is just a bit of geometric distortion, couldn't it be mostly fixed by performing the opposite transform on the image before displaying? That would allow you to optimize for your actual viewing position and come up with a happy average for everyone in the room, or turn it off.

I'm guessing they'll avoid my suggestion like the plague since it doesn't make the TV look expensive enough.

First, I sit about 9 feet from the TV, not 16.5, so the curvature will be wrong anyway.

If you want to sit 9 feet away from a 4k display, you'll probably need a 120 inch screen. For 16.5 feet away, you'll want a 225 inch screen. By choosing an absurdly close viewing distance, you are depriving the set manufacturers of tens of thousands of dollars. Shame on you!

This is actually a good idea for a computer monitor for one person. Any reasonable two monitor setup is going to be at some angle instead of completely flat anyway, it seems to me that a monitor with a large curve that you sit 1-3 feet from would be a pretty sweet idea (in particular make it so that you can fit multiple together). You might even be able to make a monitor that is adjustable (the screen is made of gel).

Also I bet it is pretty much just as easy to built a curved one as a flat one, so there is no reason to expect a big price increase.

There's a few "3-monitor-in-one" curved monitors around (I don't know if they're actually sold and too lazy to check, but Alienware showed a prototype years ago). It looked pretty freagin cool in games.

A few months ago I started using a 4k panel as my primary monitor. Wonderful, I absolutely love it, with one* slight annoyance - At a distance of 2ish feet (rather than TV-viewing distances of 10+ feet), the edges have enough of an angle that the foreshortening becomes distractingly noticeable.

If we could get a decently priced panel (c'mon, Big Names, Seiki has proven you can do it, quit trying to get $2500 for the same thing they list for $499!) with a slight curve to it, it would significantly improve the experience when used as a monitor. For TV, maybe not so much; but monitors, yes.

* Well, no, the biggest problem comes from the fact that in 2014, Windows still can't sanely handle displays over 96dpi. But I can't blame the display itself for that.

All the curved displays on the market by Samsung and LG are OLED panels. Widest gamut technology available to the point where it needs to be crippled in software due to the content not being stored in a format with a wide enough gamut.

Panasonic plasma was pretty much there, but now discontinued. Unfortunately even if the screen is capable of it the video formats we have are not, so it never quite looks like a window. 8k finally brings it all together, but won't be reaching the market until around 2020 (in time for the Tokyo Olympics).

Seriously, 8k, ultra high dynamic range, 120Hz frame rate, it really does look like a window.

Cinema screens are curved because cinema projectors use an anamorphic lens, and the curved screen is necessary to cancel that distortion out.

TV screens are not being projected on with an anamorphic lens. There is equal spacing between each pixel on a TV. So making a TV screen curved simply ADDS the distortion that curved cinema screens are designed to prevent.

This is the worst part though:

The slight curvature also reduces visual geometric distortion. When you watch a perfectly flat TV screen, Soneira explained, the corners of the screen are farther away than the center so they appear smaller.
"As a result, the eye doesn't see the screen as a perfect rectangle - it actually sees dual elongated trapezoids, which is keystone geometric distortion," Soneira wrote.

WHAT? The screen is a rectangle, so our eye sees it as a rectangle, just as it would any other rectangular object! The visual cortex of our brain makes sure of that. How can someone who works with TVs not understand basic concepts of human vision?

And I have no idea where he gets "dual elongated trapezoids". I assume he's TRYING to describe what a rectangle would look like in a fisheye lens (which, again, is not how humans see things), but that shape would have curved edges. "dual trapezoids" is a very poor (and irrelevant) approximation.

I assume he's TRYING to describe what a rectangle would look like in a fisheye lens

He meant to describe angular foreshortening, which really does count as a problem when using a large (over 30ish inches) screen as a monitor, two feet away from it. Yes, our brains can "correct" the image and overall, it still looks like a rectangle; but at the same time, any content shown on the far sides of the panel look noticeably squished.

When using it as a TV from 10+ feet away, however, it makes very little diffe

You're in the wrong here. Form your eyes perspective it is NOT a rectangle. The center is farther away.When you look at a strait road that goes to the horizon, do you ACTUALLY think the road gets smaller, or do you think it's how the eyes perceive it?

A road approaching the horizon is further away in the Z direction. A rectangular screen, seen from a direction perpendicular to its surface, is not. You may want to google "perspective projection". (Although of course our eyes are not a normal perspective projection, since our retinas are curved, and the image is flipped. Good thing we have that "visual cortex" thing I mentioned!)

They eyes don't see it as a rectangle. But we don't with our eyes, we see with our brains.

In a theater, the screen covers a much larger percentage of your field of vision, and the difference in distance to the center vs the edges can easily be several feet if the screen is flat. This is enough to be noticeable. In the living room, the difference will be millimeters, and you'd need a ruler to detect it.

As has been noted, this is snake oil intended to generate patent revenue.

Curved TV? Couldn't care less. But I wouldn't mind one of those ultrawide screen curved monitors. Now if they would only make the price practical. At $6000 plus, nobody but rich PC gamers will be buying them.

The slight curvature also reduces visual geometric distortion. When you watch a perfectly flat TV screen, Soneira explained, the corners of the screen are farther away than the center so they appear smaller.

I have a 30" computer monitor at work, and while I like it better than my old dual-screen setup, I've noticed this issue with windows placed close to the edges. I wonder if there are curved computer monitors in the works, or if this is just for huge TVs. The main problem mentioned with curved TVs (disto

Curved TV's reduce breakage in shipping and handling. That's a big deal as screens get bigger. A curved surface is stiffer/stronger than a flat surface of the same area. That's one reason why all the sheet metal in cars is curved.

The marketing dept was charged with the task of selling the curve to the public so they came up with the BS about more realistic images.

I don't know if statistics bear that idea out, but mechanically it's very plausible. This is worthy of comment.

It might make sense if the screens were shipped "naked", like the car sheet metal. But TVs come in corrugated cardboard boxes; all the curves are happening in the corrugation. You can ship eggs in the right kind of box.

3D tv, 4K tv...it's all diminishing returns. Yes it's a better picture but it's not THAT much better. Certainly not worth the steep premium. It's the same reason that I'm still rocking my 5 year old MacBook Pro. Sure the new ones are faster but I'm happy with mine.

This is the challenge that all hardware makers face. Whether it's refrigerators, stereos, cars, cellphones. Nearly every category is really good - good enough for most everyone. There will always be the early adopters but many people - like me - a

So you don't watch any movies or shows of any kind? 30 years ago "TV" meant "broadcast TV", now TV means "content played over a TV" which includes how many people watch streaming, DVDs, console games, media players, and a variety of other things. I'm unclear whether you watch nothing on an HDMI monitor, or are just using an obsolete definition of "TV".

Who watches TV anymore, let alone with friends, that is just some cruel torture

Says someone who isn't a hockey, or sports, fan with the Stanley Cup playoffs in progress...

This past weekend my Brother-in-law, nephews, and myself watched a bad Canadian Zombie movie. We were having a ton of fun making up our own Riff track. Granted, it's not exactly "watching TV" when you are actively participating.

I agree with you that watching TV tends to be a solitary experience unless it is a special sporting or broadcast event.

That being said, a majority of the population still watch TV. I know t